The invention relates to a shopping trolley having an option of connecting with a portable electronic device.
For a long time, small specialized stores have been increasingly forced out of the market and have been largely replaced by supermarkets, for example food or DIY stores. These stores become larger and larger, which is the reason why it is getting even more difficult for customers to find their way in such huge stores. Although most big supermarkets and DIY stores have guidance systems in the form of color codes of particular departments or labels of the individual shelves, from a great distance they are often not sufficiently recognizable, especially for people with a visual impairment.
Furthermore, during the last years, it has become common practice that particular goods or indicating labels of goods are provided with a so called QR code (“quick response code”) which can be scanned with a portable electronic device that is equipped with a camera, such as a mobile phone or a portable computer (e.g. notebook, netbook or tablet PC), and provides the customer with additional information about the goods. Since the routes, and accordingly the time spent, in the supermarket are getting longer and longer, the device frequently runs out of power early.
On the other hand, the need to deposit a coin for a shopping trolley with chain lock and coin deposit lock in order to be able to take a trolley from the shopping trolley line can sometimes constitute a problem when the customer does not have a corresponding coin, especially when the shopping trolley line is far away from the next cash desk of the supermarket, e.g. at a parking lot.
WO 98/55954 A1 discloses a mobile computer system which is mounted, among other things, on a shopping trolley which includes a docking station for a portable electronic device which is called “customer terminal” or “data collection device”, as well as various other devices mounted on the shopping trolley, such as scanners, printers, credit card readers and the like, for example. The portable electronic device exactly fits the docking station, i.e. a recess therein, with its form, but can be removed therefrom. The terminal is wirelessly connected to a central computer to transmit information to customers or sales assistants working with it, and is battery-powered. The docking station, which is preferably mounted on the grab bar of the trolley, includes for its part a power source for charging the battery of the terminal when it is inserted in the docking station.
U.S. 2005/035198 A1 discloses a similar computer system, which can, among other things, be mounted on a traditional shopping trolley (e.g. in the child's seat), but is designed for a sales assistant rather than for a customer in a shop. For this reason, it can also additionally include cash drawers, wastepaper baskets, label printers and the like. Here as well, a “wireless computer” is insertable in a docking station and removable from it, and when inserted, it can be supplied with power, i.e. charged, by the same. Again, the portable electronic device and the docking station are exactly adapted to each other, or the device is fixedly mounted on a carrier of the docking station to prevent theft.
WO 2006/117627 A1 describes a display that is fixedly mounted on the grab bar of a shopping trolley which can have several connections, among them also USB ports. Therein, a battery is provided which can be charged after connecting the shopping trolley to another one of a shopping trolley line from an external power source by means of connection cables between the individual trolleys.
WO 2010/123427 A1 discloses a shopping trolley which includes a rotor which works together with a stator situated in the floor and therefore acts both as an immobilizer and a power generator. Optionally, the shopping trolley therefore also includes an accumulator and/or one or more connections for current drain.
U.S. 2012/119874 A1 discloses a base station or docking station for a portable electronic device, which includes a bolt mechanism for the device and a RFID reader, so that the bolt mechanism can be unlocked with a RFID chip that is accomodated, e.g., in a customer card, when an interaction with the RFID reader is present.
KR 2012/0031768 A describes a shopping trolley with a user terminal which is fixedly mounted on the grab bar, and an electrically unlockable bolt mechanism.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,513,507 A finally discloses a coin deposit lock for a shopping trolley or a luggage trolley with an electromagnetic bolt mechanism, which can be unlocked with a magnetic card.
These prior art documents only insufficiently solve the initially described problems, and therefore it was an object of the invention to provide more comprehensive solutions.